It is known to cut bulbous foods in various shapes by a variety of food processing equipment. One of the most common devices used is the potato cutting equipment that produces french fries and other similar potato cuts. These cuts generally involve cutting the potato into longitudinal cuboids of various configurations. There are devices that cut the potato into flat french fries, wavy french fries, spiral shaped and many other related forms.
One of the more difficult potato cuts to effectuate in an economical fashion is the so-called shoe string cut. A problem that has been encountered in this type of cut is to find a system that will use the complete potato in order to avoid waste. Various helical or spiral-shaped food cutters are known that use the entire potato but not devices that cut the potato into a shoe string configuration. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,387,111 a device is disclosed wherein a helical or spiral-shaped bulbous food product is produced. In this patent a food product made from a vegetable such as a potato is produced by means of being cut in a way that a helical or spiral ribbon results. This ribbon has a series of loops around a center whereby the loops define a space from each other. This space corresponds to the shape of the loops and is filled with one or more similar helical or spiral ribbons. While this device utilized substantially the complete potato it is limited to cutting or preparing only spiral-shaped food. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,830,151 a sectioning device is disclosed for cutting various foods such as lemons, apples or tomatoes. Again, this device is limited in the form that it cuts the food. A rounded food article is divided by this prior art device into a number of radial sections by forcing it through a conical array of radial blades above which it is impaled on a wedge-shaped spike. The article is manually forced through the wedge-shaped spaces between the blades by an annular array of tapered wedge-shaped fingers depending from a head to which an operating handle is attached. The rounded food article processed by this prior art device is thus divided into a number of radial sections by the downward action of the plunger which forces it against the blades.
In U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,464,993 and 2,489,581 devices are disclosed for cutting fruits and vegetables into various forms. In U.S. Pat. No. 2,464,993 a device is described which can be used to produce shoe string potatoes by manually turning a handle means which rotates the potato upon fixed cutting means such as blades. This device is provided with a plurality of short blades or knives which cut into the potato along a radius extending from the rotation axis of the potato. Thus, the potato is sliced into long strips or shoe strings. The potato is impaled upon a pointed stud fixed to the rear portion of the device. The front portion of the potato is positioned against a plate having outwardly projecting teeth to hold the potato in place. Since the device requires both the fixed pointed stud and the projecting teeth on the plate, it is impossible to use the entire potato in the shoe-stringing operation. Thus, the most economical shoe-stringing process is not provided for in this prior art device. U.S. Pat. No. 2,489,581 is similar in its disclosure to U.S. Pat. No. 2,464,993 except in U.S. Pat. No. 2,489,581 various cuts can be accomplished. It has, however, the same drawback as the device of U.S. Pat. No. 2,489,581 in that the entire potato cannot be used up or consumed in the cutting operation therefore resulting in a less than optimum economic procedure.